Another webcam would be used for general visual control, and feedback.

The pattern the computer would draw as initial position of the metallic powder would be progressively reconfigured by the ants activities, bringing back the content of the "bed" into the "store room". The pattern on the bed would correspond to the program in the computer : a self modifying software and hardware, as one thing.

The computer could get complex if we would assign ants a color or an RFID tag, of if we had a less binary information to carry ("pick me up" / "leave me here", "pick me up for a while", "exchange me", ask someone to help pick me up" etc).

Such computer would be interesting to evaluate the capacity of learning of ants and of the machine.

We could also use ants methods of optimization for some of our human activities (find people under collapse buildings after avalanches, earthquakes...) or computer routines (web crawling), or new types or architecture generation...